Ballmer only wants Yahoo’s search business, VP crosses over

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has reiterated that Microsoft is only interested …

Yahoo's CEO stepped down this week, and eyes immediately turned to another CEO in the potential equation: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. However, at Microsoft's annual shareholders meeting, Ballmer only repeated what he has been saying for months: "We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo. I've said that a bunch of times. Somehow, some people have gotten confused nonetheless."

That means more bad news for Yahoo and more stock plummeting. On the other hand, Ballmer didn't rule out Yahoo from the equation completely; he did say that a search-only deal was still a possibility.

Ballmer isn't pressing though, because many Yahoo employees, including those in the search department, have already begun to jump ship. The latest is Sean Suchter, the VP of Search Technology at Yahoo, who was deeply involved in Yahoo's efforts to open up its search platform. He turned away from Yahoo and walked straight into Microsoft's outstretched arms. In July, during the Microhoo battle, Microsoft gave up trying to buy Yahoo and set its sights on just its search business. At that time, Microsoft was looking for a media partner that would be willing to do a deal with the search-free remains of Yahoo. The idea was to have Yahoo outsource search to Microsoft in exchange for guaranteed revenues over a set period.

Ballmer didn't reveal what exactly the company would consider doing now in order to grab Yahoo's search engineers, but if Yahoo continues its downwards spiral, Microsoft won't have to get its feet wet to get what it wants.